I always loved games and card games, and they played a big role in family life. It was one activity that everyone, including my grandmother, could partake in enthusiastically, and on a more or less equal footing.
The big card game was euchre, yes euchre. It is a trick-taking game with trumps, think of it as a much simpler bridge. The jacks are the strongest cards, and they are called the Right and Left Bower. The dramatic moment would come when you played with four people, and one player would announce that he or she wanted to “play it alone,” feeling confident of winning enough tricks without cooperation from the partner.
I recall sister Holly and I going to school, chatting with other kids, and being mystified that they never had heard of or played euchre. According to Wikipedia, it is “commonly played” in “Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, Upstate New York, and the Midwestern United States.” I am not sure I have ever met another human being who mentioned the game of euchre of me, not outside the family that is. Not even when I was living in New Zealand. Arguably it has Alsatian origins? At the time I assumed it was vaguely Scots-Irish, due to the family origins.
Somehow the custom of the game was transmitted through my grandmother’s “Uncle Benny,” have you ever wondered who really was an actual uncle back then?
We loved the French card game Mille Bornes. You are in a road race and trying to accumulate miles. Different types of cards were for hazard, remedy, safety, and distance. The card colors in that game were so nice, and I much preferred it to any American card game. The flat tire cards were my particular favorite. And looking back, one has to wonder whether the family ever played by anything resembling the actual proper, written rules of the thing.
As an aside, my sister and I regarded my grandmother as “speaking French,” even though I do not think this extended much beyond playing Mille Bornes, singing “Frere Jacques” and knowing a few worlds like “merci.”
I learned poker and blackjack, but never loved them. I would play solitaire over the summer when I was alone. Rummy and hearts were part of the family repertoire too. I also liked to read books about games.
As my sister and I grew up and reached our early teens, Scrabble become dominant. But if someone was tired and didn’t feel like concentrating too much, we would switch back to euchre. At Scrabble I did very well.
When I was eight or nine, my Uncle Tom taught my the rules to chess, but at first the game did not interest me, not until I was ten years old. The very first time I played he beat me with the Queen Anne’s mate trick, culminating in Q x f7. I felt swindled — why were we playing this kind of game?
Overall I am struck by what a rich menu of games we had back then. Loyal MR readers will know I am no Luddite, but I never wish we had had more technologically advanced games at our disposal. I recall also that only games brought the whole family together, because television was too divisive, due to diversity of taste. Two of us could find common shows, but it stopped there. My sister and I watched Dragnet and Adam-12 together, with my mother I watched Star Trek, and with my father Frankenstein movies. My grandmother watched only soap operas.
I also find that games and gaming are some of my most vivid and enduring memories from childhood. A lot of the rest has escaped into the fog. Today, however, I don’t play games at all.
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